#izzywiththeband

[yeahimwiththeband]

we’ll always have august

[yeahimwiththeband]

whenever i play sunflower,  i feel like this

[yeahimwiththeband]

with the band masterlist

warnings: minors DNI! 18+ only. anxiety, codependency, threesomes, oral, angst, pining, parental narcissism. and more!

a/n: i wrote this after i couldn’t get tickets to see hslot (thx ticketmaster!). this is a love on tour, harry styles au romance about a girl with anxiety meeting someone who helps her become who she is. with the band follows oc izzy, 24, as she finally breaks away from her parents and goes to a concert that changes her life. izzy = little miss obsessed with love but doesn't believe it will happen to her.

this is my first story post to tumblr, so you’re my first readers. thanks for reading. usual copyright stuff: this is my original work, do not repost without permission. but please reblog. let me know if you see any more copies on wattpad :)

prologue    sometimes i think love is for other people

chapter 1     that voice

chapter 2     Go! Dance! 

chapter 3     go after what you want

chapter 4     kid at a grown up party

chapter 5     tell the truth (part 1)

chapter 6     i’m not scared of you

chapter 7     poor little rock star

chapter 8     smoke and sugar

chapter 9     get it all back now

chapter 10   tell the truth (part 2) 

chapter 11    chicago

chapter 12    california

chapter 13    tell the truth (part 3)

chapter 14    magari

chapter 15    mrs. shepherd

chapter 16    happy new year, izzy

chapter 17    i know if i go

chapter 18    husband and wife (part 1)

chapter 19    husband and wife (part 2)

chapter 20    i feel it everywhere

chapter 21    feels so scary getting old

chapter 22    i want it back

chapter 23    no, i won’t. 

chapter 24

[yeahimwiththeband]

remember that concert?

[yeahimwiththeband]

-> with the band prologue

sometimes i think love is for other people

warning: 18+ minors DNI due to smut in later chapters. also, people pleasing, anxiety disorder, codependency (just with mc’s mom, thank god), huge amounts of really ugly fabric from the 60s, repression. still not for larries :(

A/N: i write stories about girls with anxiety disorder learning to thrive and become who they are. first story post on tumblr, first attempt writing a book of any kind. thank you so much for reading. i do take requests and love any feedback or input or ideas. this is a love on tour fanfic, harry styles au, slow burn romance. 

word count: .95k

The beginning of her happiness and their love story started with the end of another one, but Izzy didn’t know it at the time. To her, it just felt like a dead end. Watching her now-ex boyfriend’s car speed away, the road in front of her seemed dull and empty: back to her routine of working at the store during the day and living in her laptop at night. 

Izzy couldn’t see what was just around the corner, if only she could push herself to make it there.

She couldn’t believe she was back here again, alone e in the boring suburb where she grew up. She had a cast on her arm and a cardboard box of relationship castoffs at her feet. 

She had never even stayed over, so it wasn’t stuff like her toothbrush and moisturizer; in the box, Roger had given Izzy back everything she had ever given to him, all her carefully chosen gifts. She watched his car disappear down the street and heard her mother calling her from inside. She was 23, living at home, and as the sound of the engine faded away, she thought she heard an escape hatch out of her boring af life closing.

Her first and only boyfriend, done after a month. Even worse? Her mom had set them up. Roger was a childhood friend. And there was another layer of hideousness still, so ugly that Izzy couldn’t even say it aloud, not even in the silence of her own mind. Instead, she and her best friend Meg had come up with a nickname for the unspeakable thing: The Boulder. A fatal flaw that drove everyone away from her, despite Meg’s reassurances that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Izzy felt shame climb her legs like fire, burning up her spine and the back of her neck. The Boulder is why Roger left. She made the mistake of telling him, the mistake of telling the truth. Izzy felt like the least loveable person alive.

How could she go back inside and explain the breakup to her mom? What lie would she whip up this time to keep her happy? Maybe she could say that Roger was moving out of the country. Or that he had been drafted. Izzy wiped her face and pressed the back of her hands to her cheeks, trying to hide all evidence of tears before going back inside. She didn’t want to distress or disappoint anyone.

What was she doing wrong? Whenever a guy liked her, it was never something normal—it was always something totally weird, and always someone she didn’t even really like that much. She wanted a relationship like the ones her friends had, where they went on normal dates and didn’t seem totally consumed with panic and anxiety. Big love. Real love. Not having to ask Roger if she could stay over and being told no, because he had work in the morning. Her life at that moment felt like a long list of things she didn’t have and things she hadn’t done, an empty charade put on for her parents, who she could never seem to please.

She stood frozen on the sidewalk, contemplating her options. She could bring the box inside, tell everyone she was fine, and drown her sorrows in Netflix and A03, like she always did.

Instead, Izzy dialled her best friend Meg. The accident that left her with the cast on her arm and the scar on her stomach had turned her life upside down. All the things she could just barely tolerate before—basically, every single thing in her life—she could no longer smile and lie through.

When Meg picked up, Izzy was too close to crying to speak.

“What’s wrong? Did he… is it over?”

Izzy recounted the breakup: the message, the cold box drop off. “I didn’t even want to go out with him in the first place. It was for my mom, as usual,” Izzy sniffed.

“How are you feeling?” Meg asked. Izzy didn’t have the comfort of hiding from her best friend, because they had known each other since first grade; even when Izzy lied to try to stuff down her own feelings, as she always did, Meg knew what was really going on.

Izzy looked down at the discarded presents in the box. The baseball cap from Roger’s favourite team, which she pretended to love too. The t-shirt from his favourite EDM artist, which she had listened to for hours and hours even though she hated it. All this, and he didn’t love her back.

For the first time, Izzy tried to put words to the pain rooted deep in her chest: “Sometimes I think love is for other people.”

“Oh, Izzy,” Meg replied, nearly crying herself.

Izzy’s sadness filled the silence on both ends of the line. Izzy put the back of her hand up to her face to blot away the tears that had started falling.

 “It is for you,” Meg said. “You can have it, too.”

“Then where is it?” Izzy asked. “Why haven’t I…”

“Roger didn’t even know you,” Meg said, sensing an opportunity to be more honest. “It wasn’t a—I know it’s hard not to take this personally, but honestly, the person he rejected wasn’t you.”

Izzy nodded, surprised by this revelation.

“You never let them see you,” Meg said gently.

Izzy pushed the box to the side, up next to the garbage that would be taken away the next morning. She took a deep breath, feeling unsteady. 

“I have to…” Izzy searched around. 

She looked down at the box of things she had said she loved to keep someone who didn’t even like her. Who she had nothing in common with. She hadn’t even gone after him; she had clung onto him just because he was around. She never went after what she wanted.

“I have to stop faking everything just to keep people,” Izzy continued, uncertain. “I have to do some things I’ve wanted to do.”

“Yes, yes, totally,” said Meg, so excited she was almost shouting. “What do you want to start with?”

That was the beginning of the three secrets.

And Izzy didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of him: big love, real love, just what she needed. But not quite the way she imagined it.

chapter 1

[yeahimwiththeband]

we’ll always have august

[yeahimwiththeband]

-> with the band chapter 1

warning: romance, 18+ minors DNI due to smut in later chapters; also, people pleasing, anxiety, codependency (not with harry), huge amounts of really ugly fabric from the 60s, repression. not for larries :( 

A/N: this is a slow burn love story. and my first story post on tumblr! i’ve won some writing contests but haven’t ever written anything this long. feedback so so so welcome. 

word count: 2.1k

just listen to it

Izzy reread the message on her phone, confused. Her best friend Meg was begging now: her texts had gotten desperate. Meg was never up this late and she never sent her songs. What was she up to?

Izzy opened the song Meg sent and hit play: she gave it a few seconds, and a lone beat cut across her room. 

August.

It was the hottest day of the year, and Izzy lifted one foot, then the other, to help them breathe in her room’s old shag carpeting, feeling the soft air from outside across her soles. The beat was joined by a single guitar and seemed to melt into the summer air. It was dark and hypnotic, with a low hum that floated underneath the melody. Izzy tried to imagine the lead singer, lips together, making the sound that filled her bedroom.

Wednesday night in August, the last week of the summer. Her mom was out, but she would be back soon. Izzy leaned out her bedroom window, checking for signs of her parents’ car; the street was silent, the air thick and humid. Izzy took a deep breath. She had three secrets now—two hidden in her closet—that no one knew, except her best friend.

She always meant to do something exciting when her parents were out. Tonight, Izzy disappointed herself again: her big rebellion was an extra bowl of cereal. They would be home any minute. 

Izzy hated that she was 24 and still listening for her mom coming up the stairs. 

She went back to her laptop. Izzy scrolled Pinterest, colorful pins of interesting people doing colorful, beautiful things flying past: pretty towns where you could walk everywhere, big groups picnics in big city parks, girls in bands, dresses she had nowhere to wear. Izzy had spent a long time living in her laptop, but she could feel that tonight, something was different: something had been building all summer. Her phone pinged again and she read the text message from Meg, her best friend: concert tomorrow??? you said stay up, this is staying up

Meg was 25 and married and happy and had all the things. House, electric car, and pretty soon, a baby, probably. She had done everything right. She asked her husband out in university, in a lecture she and Izzy took together, just like that. Izzy had watched her do it, stunned. Meg just walked over, smiled, said something about coffee after class, and that was it. Meg said she had been rejected by guys many times before and you just had to get used to it. Izzy didn’t really believe her—someone as beautiful as Meg, rejected? Meg said it was the price of admission for dating. Izzy thought it was pretty transparently pity/advice. Surely, someone would come and find her. That’s what Izzy hoped for, but at the same time, in some part of her, Izzy knew that hope was expectation without reason. Realizing that had been the beginning of the three secrets. 

She missed him. Her ex, from... last year? God, it had been a whole year. She tried to shake it off, disgusted with herself, but she couldn't help it. 

The feeling of his hands on her hips sometimes washed over her in moments like this—his fingers in her mouth, his teeth on her neck—when she was alone in her room, another night in. 

A moment of self awareness burst through: Roger? She missed Roger? This was bad. She had to get out. She could almost see The Boulder in the middle of her room, the flaw so excruciating he broke up with her the second she told him about it. The Boulder wouldn’t go away on its own. And she wanted it gone. 

Izzy’s phone pinged again. It was one of the two dating apps she played with on her phone. Using up almost all of her energy, she opened the app and read the message:

wyd?

wanna come over

My mom’s asleep ;)

It was from someone named Noah, who Izzy had never spoken to before—Izzy didn’t even remember matching him. WTF? She closed the app. 

Meg was part of a club called the marrieds—at least, that’s what Izzy called them in her head. Girls just a little older who seemed to have figured it out years ago, populated by Lauren (tall, serious soccer player, serious anxiety), Olivia (tiny, yogi, “wellness lifestyle coach”), and Mia (former friend of her cousin Lydia, former lunatic). Sometimes, it seemed like a club she wouldn’t ever get to join.

Izzy stood and went to her mirror. It was something her mom had put in her room, just like everything else that was there. She still - still! - lived with her parents, above the clothing store where she had worked since high school. It was a small, stripmall town near a big city she went into once a year if she was lucky. 

Izzy looked at herself in the mirror, still in her work drip. Or anti-drip. 100% polyester. Beige. She tucked her hair behind her ears and contemplated her reflection. She had tried to turn the outfit into a clean girl look with some gold earrings, but it wasn’t working—it could never work! The skirt and blouse and vest (yes, a vest) were fucking crazy: ruffles, epaulets, buttons - and not like those cool, 80s buttons people are wearing - it was like something from the uncool part of the 80s. The part her parents were still stuck in. She didn’t hate her body or her face; she had done the work on body acceptance, against all odds (the odds being her parents). But did anyone look good in beige ruffles? Like, anyone alive? Why did she have to wear these things every day? Why couldn’t the store sell something from the last 10 years?

She had tried—she had gently hinted to her mother that they might consider some new suppliers. But her mom wanted to please her own mother, who had selected the suppliers herself when she opened the store. The relationships with the designers were long, decades long. And they still had customers; it’s just that they were older and older, and fewer and fewer, each year. Izzy had been named for her grandmother, Isabella, who came her with nothing and built a store and a business with her bare hands. Her mother ran the store, and someday, it would be passed on to Izzy. She had gone to university for business for that purpose, with minors in literature and music - really, those subjects were more than half her classes. Izzy had always told her mom that she wanted to take over the store and loved to work there, and her mom had no reason to believe otherwise.

Izzy went to the door of her room and cracked it open, looking down the hallway both ways. Her parents door was right next to hers. The hallway was empty. 

She couldn’t hear anything. 

She walked over to her closet.

Her phone pinged again: come on, music babe! maybe they’ll pull us up on stage and you can solo, lol

Another ping: Her BeReal alarm. Izzy looked around her room, and smiled, laughing a bit at herself. What was there to take a photo of? A photo of her cousin Lydia popped up: one tit almost out of her shirt, mid-twerk, at a party of some sort. Like a normal person her age.

Another message from Meg: so?? have you gotten to the chorus yet?????

Izzy listened cautiously, and not hearing her parent’s car in the drive or feet on the stairs, she turned up the song Meg had sent. It was good, actually. Really good. Holy shit, it was like Queen by Perfume Genius but better—it sounded like summer. Like a summer not in her room in her parent’s house. She checked the title: it was something by Harry Styles, who she hadn’t listened to a ton before. Truthfully, she had been kind of living under a rock and hadn’t crawled back out after the pandemic. 

That voice.

Raspy and strong, the voice was crying out for something. Izzy eyed her closet.

She paused to listen for her parents one more time, then creaked the closet’s old accordion doors open. She had to use her whole bodyweight to shift aside the heavy hangers of polyester, the many leaden and sunken ruffles in beige, brown, and black. Her whole wardrobe was from the family store. Anything else was a betrayal. But Izzy had betrayed her family for the first time this year, and the dress had arrived this morning.

She took the dress out. The betrayal was green and short and in a natural fabric that didn’t make her fingers itch, with an open back so her skin could breathe.

She stuffed the package it came in further back in the closet as a reflexive precaution.

She held it up in front of herself in the mirror, putting the hanger over her head. It was beautiful. It made her look her actual age. It was a dress you could go on a date in. Where some guy might ask you out for a drink or dinner or maybe one of those carnival dates - a date everyone had seemed to have been on, except for her, with cotton candy, a ferris wheel, and a cheap stuffed bear won at a huge cost at a booth.

Izzy picked up her phone and turned up the song again. She opened the message from Meg. She replied: yes. let’s goooo.

She didn’t hear the car pull in.

Meg immediately texted back: wait, what? really? HIGH KEY THRILLED. Several skulls followed. Meg explained the band: it sounded like Perfume Genius but like better and the drummer was a snack but their new lead guitarist was a WHOLE MEAL and the opening girl band was supposed to be super amazing. Meg wrote several paragraphs about the drummer, and mentioned that Lydia had invited her, and none of the other marrieds could make it (sad face). Meg seriously stanned Harry Styles. 

Light flooded across the back of the mirror; Izzy gasped, her door was open. She peered around the mirror to see her mother’s soft silhouette illuminated by the hall light behind her.

“Izzy? You’re still up?” She took a step forward.

“Just about to go to sleep. Let’s talk in the morning, I’m beat,” Izzy countered, stepping closer to the mirror to hide the dress.

Her mom stepped forward into the room. She wore an outfit in a similar fabric, but somehow, the ruffles worked on her. Izzy had no way of hiding her dress.

Her mom’s mouth dropped open. “That’s not from the store.”

“Sorry,” Izzy said, reflexively. She turned toward her mother, blocking as much of the open closet as possible.

Her mother looked the dress up and down. She smiled - a painful smile, the one she put on when her heart was breaking. Izzy fought every instinct she had to make up a story, about how the dress was delivered here by mistake, or how Meg had given it to her, and the clothes from the store were so much better. But Izzy had been trying to tell the truth lately, or more - not just blurt out any lie to mollify whoever she was trying to please at that moment.

They could hear the TV flick on downstairs. Izzy knew her dad was on the sofa, beer in hand. Her parents had never gone to bed at the same time, at least not in Izzy’s memory. The TV was always the same: some old man yelling about the woke mob and Roe v Wade. Every time Izzy tried to gently talk to her father, something came spilling out of him that was worse than she could have imagined he believed. You have a daughter, Izzy wanted to say. How could you think that?

Her mom was now looking around her daughter, toward the open closet, where the second secret was hiding. Izzy took the hanger from around her neck, put it back in the closet, and closed the doors.

“I might have to close early tomorrow. I’m going to a concert with Meg.”

“Oh, okay. Mrs. Shepherd is coming in after her shift—the dress for her daughter’s wedding. I can take that one.”

“Thank you,” said Izzy. And then, it just came out, involuntarily: “It’s an indoor concert and I needed something really light, because apparently it can get up to, like, a hundred inside. I didn’t want to ruin something nice from the store.”

“Ah,” her mom said. She seemed to relax a bit. She stepped back toward the door, and they said their goodnights. 

Izzy listened to her footsteps as they faded down the hall. She looked down at her phone, to group chat she was now in with Lydia and Meg. Izzy felt guilt swelling in her stomach like a cramp. Maybe she should cancel. She should take the appointment with Mrs. Shepherd. Her mom would be run off her feet; she looked so tired.

see you in the PIT! the pit is where it all happens, Lydia wrote.

how much do I owe you for the tickets? Izzy replied. Her mother’s “that’s not from the store” was echoing in her mind. Maybe the price would be too high and she could get out of it that way. She started preparing her excuse text, something she had turned into an art: “that’s a bit out of my budget for now, but you guys have a great time and take soooo many photos for me.” She should be given an honorary degree in excuse texts. It was such as spontaneous plan, she hadn’t had the notice to mention a headache a few days before, building to an illness that would make an easy out.

they were freeeeeee no cap. you’re friends with a mega influencer, Lydia wrote. To Izzy’s knowledge, Lydia had about 4,372 followers and followed more than 10,000 people.

see you on the floor tomorrowwww 7 PM do not BE LATE this is love on tour not a drill

Izzy grinned—she couldn’t help it. A thick breeze swept in from outside. She went over to her closet and peeked at her dress, the green standing out like a single flower in a field of sun bleached grass.

Every secret was another room she could live in. And she could decorate those rooms any way she liked, and dance in them, and invite just who she wanted into them. She had two secrets left, and she wanted more. She wanted to build an entire house with them, a house of her own.

She put her headphones in, turned the song up again, and played it from the beginning.

chapter 2

[yeahimwiththeband]

-> with the band chapter 2

Go! Dance!

warning: 18+ minors DNI due to smut in the next chapter. also, people pleasing, anxiety, codependency (just with mc’s mom, thank god), huge amounts of really ugly fabric from the 60s, repression. still not for larries :(

A/N: first story post on tumblr, first attempt writing a book of any kind.

chapter 1 is right here

word count: 3.32k

That fucking voice.

Izzy couldn’t stop playing the song over and over and over in her mind. Harry drowned out the 50s acapella always on in the background of the store. The od music matched the venue: wall to wall paisley carpeting and wallpaper, taupe and yellow fabric samples draped from the ceiling, and mannequins dressed like 1962 framing a fitting area with a three way mirror that made the brown room seem like an infinite prison Izzy would never escape. Izzy had never been to a concert. Her whole life seemed to her like a long list of things she had never done. 

Izzy did another lap of the store with the duster, nervous. Maybe she could say she couldn’t make it because of the thunder storm that was going to happen that evening? Why did she use up her food poisoning excuse last week on that house party? She could stay in the store and do Mrs. Shepherd’s appointment and take care of the shoe inventory, like she did every Friday night.

But she couldn’t get that voice out of her head. And her secrets urged her on. The super pretty and way too short green dress waited upstairs, demanding to be worn. It was laid out on her bed, spiting The Boulder, shocking her room’s brown wallpaper and brown carpet. 

She was going to the concert tonight. She was going to the pit. She’d hear the song live, the song that Meg sent her with that voice. 

Izzy checked her phone: it was another mysterious text, this time not from Meg.

can’t wait to meet you tonight

It was from a number she didn’t recognize. Did that weirdo who messaged her on the app last night somehow find her number? Noah whatshisname?

Izzy checked Instagram, where Meg had just posted another one of those couple posts: legs and hands and sheets intertwined. Izzy loved Meg too much to be nauseated by the post, but she did want what she had. Izzy thought, feeling a change in the air, maybe she would have to do what Meg did to get it—starting with leaving her house. 

A huge iron cross hung over her at the register, above the shop entrance. The guilt landed on her chest with a thud: how could she selfishly just leave this struggling business, abandoning her mom to fend for herself? Her mom was getting older. She was an only child. The cross was the first thing her grandmother put in the store, her mom told her. Everything her mom had learned about being the most conservative, hardworking person on earth, she had learned from Ila, a name that sounded way too soft to have belonged to a woman so formidable. Ila built the store from nothing. Her mother’s sister was supposed to take over the store, but that was before the accident. Izzy’s hand reflexively drifted to her stomach, where her scar was. Her aunt, Lydia’s mother, died in the accident when Lydia was just 16. Ila left the store to her mother so that the family could survive and everything Izzy had was thanks to the store. This is what her mother had told her thousands of times. 

Izzy checked over her shoulder—a reflex—then dusted off the ancient 2002 boombox always on Easy Vintage Listening FM. She fiddled with the tuning dial until she struck gold: it was that voice, singing about a girl crush and a heart rush. That voice on the radio by chance was clearly a sign. Izzy decided: she was going to the concert. For sure.

botticelli’s at 1, right?

Another text from the mystery number. Botticelli’s, across from the store, was as old as the store. It was a restaurant for geriatrics with a last seating at 4 for a 5 PM closing. Izzy texted back: I think you have the wrong number! Sorry :)

Just then, her mom swept in, silent as usual. Izzy jumped when she appeared on the other side of the counter.

“Izzy, crisis,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “The inventory is arriving a day early!They said it should be here by 6 at the latest—“

Izzy took a deep breath. “Mom, I have that concert later, and I’m supposed to be at the doors at seven.”

“Was that tonight?” Her mom neatened the receipt stack on the counter and abruptly changed the music back to the preselected station.

Sudden text from Lydia (they were always sudden): you owe me $86 for the tickets

you said they were free, Izzy fired back.

fees face value etc, Lydia texted.

Just then, the mystery texter struck again: haha, I heard you were funny Izzy

Izzy watched her mother move around the store, dusting and straightening everything more frantically than usual. The vibes were off.

Izzy caught a glimpse of herself shattered in the store’s folding mirror, refracted with slices of brown and brocade. She transferred Lydia the money without checking her balance. She couldn’t stop thinking about that voice, listening to it in her mind: it was so deep. There was so much longing in it. It spoke directly to her. 

Izzy was the kind of broke where she had to check her chequing account before sending that kind of money over. She earned less than minimum wage at the store (and free rent, as her mom always pointed out). She had a small nest egg of $2,314 she was saving for her own apartment, first and last month’s rent, in another account that wasn’t joint with her parents’.

She hatched a plan: whispering into her phone, she called the supplier and asked for the shipment early, which she had done before. It was many bolsters of fabric and would take ages for her to unload and set up in the store. The supplier would arrive at noon, giving her plenty of time to get to the concert. As she hung up the phone, her mom turned on the hand vacuum, which she used on the many hangers that hadn’t been touched in months. It was noon and there were no customers in sight, as usual.

This was new: an image of herself appeared on her phone screen—a photo taken three summers ago, Meg cropped out of the frame. An alarming text accompanied it: You’re so pretty in your photos. This one’s my favourite.

The truck pulled up with its usual horn—same driver for forty years—and Izzy rushed out to meet it. Her mom was close to follow.

“I wanted to start unloading over lunch, so I could be sure to make the concert,” Izzy explained, noticing her mom seemed distressed by the early arrival, wringing her hands. The driver opened the back and started unloading the rolls.

“I’m not sure you can unload it over lunch, sweetie,” her mom said. “I have a surprise for you.”

More ominous words had never been spoken. The fabric bolsters piled up inside the store entrance. Izzy’s phone pinged again.  

Her mom smiled. She nodded toward the door.

A balding man, wearing the same suit cut as her father, strolled into view beside the truck. He was maybe 40.

“Izzy?” He asked in her direction. Izzy looked behind her, then back at him, confused. His voice was high and tight, like a balloon.

Her mom nudged her forward. Izzy stumbled over one of the fabric bolsters.

The man smiled at her and extended his hand. “Hi,” Izzy managed. His hand was slick with… sweat? Hand sanitizer? What the fuck is this? Izzy thought.

“I’m Josh. I’ve heard so much about you.” Josh took a small tube of hand sanitizer out of his pocket and rubbed his hands. He extended it to Izzy. Izzy shook her head.

“She’ll be ready in just a second,” her mom said. Josh took a step back. Upon closer inspection, his suit was definitely from the store.

Her mother pulled Izzy aside: “I put aside an outfit for you. You can match.”

“Mom… what is this?”

“Just a lunch date! You haven’t been out on a date in so long, not since Roger. And this is your father’s youngest friend.”

A tremor ran down Izzy’s spine. Roger. Yikes. One of dad’s friends… and not in a hot way. Big yikes. Izzy felt panic spread from her hands up her back to her scalp: a burning she knew well. She had a name for it now: anxiety. 

But she couldn’t say no. That was even more terrifying.

Izzy found herself sitting in front of a plate of half eaten Waldorf salad—nuts, mayonnaise, grapes, nightmares—opposite this old stranger, watching the truck pull away, leaving about eighty fabric bolsters piled up in the store entranceway. She caught her mom peering at her from the store from time to time, and had to stop looking over at the fabric piling up.

Their outfits matched. One of her mother’s more evil moments—well intentioned, but good god. Izzy shuddered when she caught the sight of them, the matching couple, in the glass. She remembered Meg’s photo of her and her husband, arms intertwined, in bed. Josh’s vibe was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal, but he hadn’t noticed the big dollop of mayo that had landed on his brown tie. 

“You’re even more beautiful than the photos,” he said, breaking his monologue about the benefits of rising home prices for the middle class. He dropped his wet hand onto hers. The mayo dropped into his lap.

“The photos?” Izzy stammered.

“That your mom has been sending. She wanted to wait for me to ask you out, and then all of a sudden, late last night, she said now was the perfect time.”

Josh was handsome in a sort of flat-faced way, with defined, narrow shoulders and overlong legs. Izzy would forgive any physical flaw, if it weren’t so emphasized by all the personal ones: he had been talking for an hour without asking her any questions. Josh’s obliviousness helped to soothe her anxiety; he didn’t seem to notice her enough to note what was wrong with her, and her burning need to make a good impression on him to please her mother faded by the minute. 

Josh sat ramrod straight in his chair and kept straightening his napkin in his lap. He had insisted on pulling out her chair when they sat down, almost tripping her in the process, and asked for a salad fork when the first course came. An Izzy from last year might smiled and nodded and found nothing wrong with his monologuing. 

Izzy wasn’t sure how many courses there were, but she had to get out of there if she was going to make the concert. She decided to speak up.

“Josh—”

“And that’s when I realized that supplier logistics was my passion,” He squeaked. “The data available now, it’s incredibly exciting: everything from customer retention to granular behaviour, down to order patterns by the season…”

“Josh—”

“And I wanted to tell you, as I told your mother, that I’ve saved up enough for a three bedroom condo and I intend to purchase one in this neighbourhood within the next year, if the interest rates—“

“Josh!” Izzy dropped her fork.

Josh looked at her, maybe seeing Izzy for the first time.

“Sorry! Interest rates aren’t really first date material, are they?” He cleared his throat, but started again before Izzy could get a word in. “Where do you think the housing market is going to go?”

“I have to get back to the store,” Izzy said.

Izzy folded her napkin and put it back on the table. “This was great,” she lied. She scolded herself internally: she was trying to lie less, even if it made things awkward. She stood up. “I have to put away all that fabric. Thank you so much for lunch.”

Josh awkwardly stood up and hugged her: “I get it! Girlboss gotta girlboss.” Izzy laughed awkwardly. The mayo had transferred to her vest.

“You’ve got a little something,” Josh said, gesturing to her shirt. Izzy smiled and brushed it off, waving as she sprinted back across the street to the store.

She was soon lugging large swathes over to the display cases: greys, beiges, synthetic corduroy, synthetic everything. It was 6 PM. Her mom hovered over her, asking questions until she felt like she might explode:

“Was it a love match? Did he tell you about the condo? Three bedrooms! He wants to start a family. Did he mention how long he’s known your father?”

Izzy was about to snap when her mom dropped the final bomb: “Mrs. Shepherd had to move her appointment back to seven. I hope that’s okay. I’m sure you can see that band tomorrow night. I have to go look at the books upstairs, but you can handle it, right?” Izzy barely heard the door close behind her. She was alone in the store, again. Like always.

Izzy’s shoulders sagged. She stepped up onto the pedestal in front of the three way mirror and surveyed the damage.

Her face was slick with sweat. Her vest was stained. Her stockings had a run. She looked into the mirror, and saw her mom’s face staring back at her. Her chin wrinkled suddenly. She was about to cry.

“Elisabetta?” Izzy wiped her eyes. She turned around to see Mrs. Shepherd waiting behind her. She was a short woman, in a tweed skirt suit, grey hair. The same age her grandmother would have been, and the store’s longest customer. She had always called her Elisabetta, just like her grandmother did. 

“Hi, Mrs. Shepherd. Let me grab your sample.”

“But what are you doing here? It’s Friday night!”

Izzy emerged from the changing room, holding out a pink skirt suit in the same conservative cut. Mrs. Shepherd and her grandmother had been friends back in Italy, all the way back in the tiny Sicily town where they were born just days apart. They had come over soon after one another, when they were done high school. Both raised Catholic, both married off when they were teenagers. They went to church not once a week, but three times, after they moved to America. 

“What do you think?” Mrs. Shepherd didn’t look at the dress.

“But I hope you’re not staying home on my account,” she said, frowning.

“No, no,” Izzy replied. Mrs. Shepherd looked her best friend’s granddaughter up and down. Izzy self-consciously tugged on her vest. 

“I remember when you were a little girl,” Mrs. Shepherd said, sadness in her voice. “You used to dance in this room, twirling all the bolsters. You used to make your mom change the music to whatever you wanted.”

Mrs. Shepherd disappeared into the dressing room. Izzy couldn’t remember ever dancing here. She checked her watch. It was 6:30.

“You’re early, thank you,” Izzy said.

“I got a call from your mother this morning moving the appointment back all the way to seven, but I thought I’d come at the usual time just in case,” Mrs. Shepherd said from the dressing room.

Izzy’s mouth dropped open in shock. She couldn’t reply. 

“She said she set you up with that Josh, finally,” said Mrs. Shepherd. “She’s been talking about setting you two up for years! Your mother and his father have planned it practically since you were born. He’ll never move out of this neighbourhood, that’s for sure.”

Izzy couldn’t move. 

“But he is a bit of a bore, no? Self-important, over obsequious, I think. And I told her that I was sure a bright young thing like you had many suitors—you must be drowning in suitors!”

“Not really, Mrs. Shepherd,” Izzy tried a weak laugh.

Mrs. Shepherd came out of the dressing room fully enswathed in a dusty pink.

Izzy held her hand as she stepped up onto the pedestal in front of the mirror. Rather than letting go, Mrs. Shepherd’s grasp tightened suddenly around hers. She pulled Izzy in close, her face just inches away.

“Your grandmother,” Mrs. Shepherd whispered, “she was a wild woman.”

Izzy gasped. Mrs. Shepherd continued, pulling her even closer: “She was wild. The way we used to go out dancing. She used to sing, you know, and play guitar. She could have really been something.”

“Ila?” Izzy asked, stunned. Her eyes flitted to the heavy iron cross hanging above the door.

“Ila was truly free. She left Italy because she had to,” Mrs. Shepherd said. She dropped Izzy’s hand and pointed to the door. “Go. Be young. I’m sure your friends are waiting for you somewhere.”

Izzy stumbled backwards. “No excuse—I know how to close, of course,” Mrs. Shepherd said, laughing. “I’ve only been coming here for forty years. Keys under the cash register.” Izzy nodded, dazed.

She started toward the door, turning back to say thank you. Mrs. Shepherd smiled broadly and waved her onward. “Go!”

Izzy was soon upstairs and out the door in her green dress, fanny pack hastily slung around her shoulders with her wallet, a chapstick, and her phone. She ran down the sidewalk with her sneaker laces flying, casting one last glance over her shoulder to see her mom in the upstairs window hunched over a laptop, and Mrs. Shepherd downstairs locking the front door.

The parking lot outside the venue was a pulsing throng: thousands of girls, a beat in the background, everyone glistening in the humidity and swarming toward the venue gates.

Izzy heard a clap and turned to see Meg: “You made it! Yay!”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,” Izzy apologized a few more times for good measure. She was fifteen minutes late.

“Bleh, shut up,” said Lydia. She had no filter. Wearing a rainbow sequinned jumpsuit, a shearling jacket, and star-shaped glasses, she jumped up and down in front of her phone, taking a video.

“You guys look like rubes,” she said, closing the video.

Lydia was truly beautiful, a tall pale fairy thing who looked like she was from another family, or another planet. Her skin was almost translucent, like porcelain except the few moles dotting her arms. She had wide open eyes a blue so pale that they were almost clear. Her hair fell nearly down to her waist. 

“What’s a rube?” Izzy asked, pulling her cousin in for a hug. Izzy often wondered: How do we come from the same family, and Lydia ends up this glittering cool chaos person, and I…

Lydia took lipstick out of her purse and yanked Izzy’s dress down on the left side to reveal her bra. Izzy stood placidly. Nothing Lydia did shocked her anymore. 

“We have to get inside! The opening act has already started!” Meg tapped impatiently on her smartwatch. Meg couldn’t be more different from Lydia: shorter, darker, with full lips, wide hips, and deep, piercing eyes. 

Lydia drew a heart in red lipstick on Izzy’s chest, coming to a point just above her nipple. Izzy pulled the dress up slightly, but the heart was still mostly visible.

“Much better,” said Lydia. She drew a smaller heart on Meg’s cheek. 

“Izzy, you look like super amazing,” Meg said. 

“You too,” Izzy replied. Meg was one of the few people Izzy could see clearly. She felt totally calm around her. 

Lydia grabbed both their hands and pulled them toward the open gate, past security, and down a broad flight of stairs. They moved with the crowd and the beat, getting closer and closer to the throbbing inside of their town’s largest venue. Izzy’s phone pinged, and she scrambled to get it out of her bag as Lydia yanked her along; it was her BeReal alarm. But she forgot it entirely when they ran through the final doors, nearly dropping her phone on the ramp. 

They burst into the concert hall: Izzy did a full circle, awestruck by the sight of thousands of girls, dozens of rows high, all around the stage. She and Meg grinned each other, eyes wide. The whole room was screaming and pulsing to an insane drum solo coming from the stage. Lydia explained, shouting over the crowd, that this was a new opening act just for this city. 

They followed Lydia, running after her to keep up, as she got closer and closer to the lights, past more and more security guards in yellow vests. Water bottles already littered the concrete stairs and everyone stood with their hands up, swaying in front of their seats. Izzy just felt like one of them; The Boulder was reduced to a pebble in her shoe. Mrs. Shepherd’s words echoed in her mind: Go! Dance! 

They were on the floor, breaking past groups of women holding up signs and throwing things on stage. Izzy could make them out now: four women, on drums, a guitar, keyboard, and at the mic. Lydia’s eyes were fixed forward—she was totally determined to get to the front. Izzy followed her gaze up to a shirtless base guitarist with deep brown eyes and a curl dropping over his forehead, sweat gathering on his bare, muscled chest. He looked like he was carved out of marble. 

“Best girl band in the country,” Lydia screamed over the music. “Check out that fucking drummer.” 

They had reached the stage—Lydia reached out to touch it, eyes closed, as if she were touching an altar. They were close enough to see the smudges on the band’s members’ shoes. 

The drummer accelerated, her hands and sticks a blur. Lydia dropped her hands and started dancing, possessed. Meg followed. Izzy looked up at them, awestruck: the women were absolutely raging. The lead singer started and the guitarist strummed over the drums, a low wail that built and built. The crowd fucking lost it. She hadn’t heard them before, but Izzy couldn’t help herself—she let go in the swelling beat. She felt like she was inside the music. She threw her hair around and put her arms above her head, dancing like she was a kid again. It wasn’t a performance, like so much of what she did in front of other people; she danced the way she felt, for herself. 

Lydia seemed to be in a trance. Izzy followed her eyes up to the lead guitarist. The guitarist’s hands climbed and fell manically, hitting crescendos during the chorus that sent the crowd into a frenzy. He wasn’t the voice, but oh god. 

Just then, he turned and their eyes met. Izzy looked away, embarrassed. That grin. Those furious fingers. Mrs. Shepherd’s words floated over the music: Go! Dance!

Izzy looked back up at him. His eyes were still on her. He smiled. She beamed back. 

The guitarist was so far beyond the guys she had ever met in person; not just in the way that he looked. It was the way that he moved.

They laughed and danced and anytime Izzy stole a glance, the guitarist was looking back at her.

That voice hadn’t even come on yet, and it was already the best night of her life.

chapter3